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Sharada Subramanian a.k.a. Sharada Vijay does not mince her words either when she writes or speaks. Meet this author of Make it 2.
The first thing you notice about her is that she is hard to miss. There is something about the way that she is unapologetically candid that draws you to her. It is when you read her work that is more often than not a reflection of herself that you fall in love with her more.
Her writings are not for everyone. They are for those people who are not afraid to look into the mirror and accept themselves for who they truly are without shying away from raw human nature that is sometimes truly ugly.
She is one of those authors who are not afraid to bare their soul when it comes to writing. She writes about things like adultery, abortion, bondage, masturbation and just anything else that we all want to read about but often shy away from penning down.
Meet Sharada Subramanian, a.k.a. Sharada Vijay, a Chennai based blogger who has recently written her debut novel Make it 2.
Make it 2 is a novel that falls under the ‘soft-erotica’ genre. “Why soft erotica?” is a question to which Sharada quickly smiles. “Why not? Erotica is as natural as child-birth or sneezing and there is no shying away from it.” she says.
When I read her book, I caught myself smiling in a lot of places because the women in her novel could just be me or you or every other girl. Except, these girls possibly voice out every thought that we curtail for the fear of being judged.
In one chapter, the boy asks his girlfriend to wear a saree and get properly dressed to meet his parents. Just when you expect the girl to politely agree, her lead character comes back with a cheeky reply and says, “Stop acting like my pimp and telling me how to get dressed for what. I am your girlfriend!”
And it is in moments like these that you know that Sharada stands aside from all those who are writing for acceptance. She wants her voice to be heard. Not just accepted.
Recently, she was covered by the Humans of Madras where she narrated her life story in three parts. She came out in the open about her life starting from how she was subjected to physical abuse by her boyfriend, how her first marriage failed and how she overcame all of this and went on to channelize her energy in writing.
It was one of those posts with wide reach that went on to inspire thousands of people who are suffering silently against domestic violence.
“After my divorce I took a 1250 sq.ft apartment all for myself. I enjoyed the independence of being alone. I used to go out at 2.00 A.M in the morning, eat all the food I wanted to and suddenly in the solitude, I started to write my first post in the balcony of my apartment,” she reminisces.
Her first book also started on her blog where she started penning down the novel and was really excited by the response she received and went on to write her book.
When you talk to Sharada, you start to realize that this is a no-nonsense woman whose fearlessness probably scares you a little bit. However that is only until you listen to her open up to you with a vulnerability that is rare.
She is known in the bloggers circle for always voicing out her opinion about things that are often considered ‘taboo’ or ‘controversial’ for a woman to speak about. When asked if the reactions to her writing ever bothers her, this is what she has to say.
“Any opinion that is strong and stands away from the crowd becomes controversial. In our country we classify which words should be used by which gender. Alcohol, sex, condoms and cigars are for men. When an Indian woman uses a word like masturbation, it becomes taboo!”
As we wound up the interview, I asked Sharada “What would you do differently as a writer?”
Being the quirky woman that she is, she laughed and said “I would re-write my resignation letter to my earlier company. I was too polite”.
You can read Sharada’s blog here.
You can buy the book at Flipkart, Amazon India, and Amazon US.
Images source: Nandhitha Hariharan.
Book cover image source: Amazon India.
A marketing graduate from the Indian School Of Business, Nandhitha is passionate about writing. She loves to write about the world around her and also enjoys dabbling with fiction/poetry. read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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